Messages

37451

Best Text Editor / Re: UltraEdit 11 - Best text editor?

« on: April 25, 2005, 02:36 AM »

WOW
word wrapping it totally F*CKED in pspad.

yipes this sucks
i think i'm going to have to modify the review.
this is not acceptable.

its totally brought the program to a halt and also doesnt work right.
what a shame.

37452

Best Text Editor / Re: UltraEdit 11 - Best text editor?

« on: April 25, 2005, 02:29 AM »

i should probably add info to the list of editors regarding which ones are actively developed and have active forums.
let me check performance with word wrap, that would be something really worth mentioning.

37453

General Software Discussion / Re: software i love

« on: April 25, 2005, 12:50 AM »

i sounds like it might be useful to have a review on these dir sync apps, to the extent that they have a different function than beyond compare.

37454

BrowserTraySwitch / Re: Minor Bugs: Netscape 4.7 not recognized / double icon clicks

« on: April 24, 2005, 07:05 PM »

thanks atom, i will fix that .ini issue and try to fix the icon behavior.
probably the default browser icon detection is also related to short file name.. i will try to fix a way to fix it.

these reports are very useful to me, thank you.

37455

Best Text Editor / Re: UltraEdit 11 - Best text editor?

« on: April 24, 2005, 06:15 PM »

I've updated the review to indicate that EditPlus has a column mode.

to me column mode is a really important feature and it's presence, or lack of, separates the top tier editors from the rest, so i apologize for missing it.  it is well hidden though.

EditPlus is indeed a nice editor.

In a way it's hard to do a review like this, focusing on a "best", when you have some very close contenders - the winner gets all the attention while the others get barely a mention.  i did try this time to be really clear about the fact that differences were not that great, and tried to list most of the serious text editors i could find, to give them some exposure.

For some reviews, like website watcher, it's easy to pick a clearly best app.  for something like text editor, it's much much harder, and personal tastes or small featureset differences could easily sway a particular person to prefer one over the other.  On the other hand, i still think there is value in choosing one app to focus on and making a recommendation in favor of it.

But perhaps in cases where things are so tight, we should consider some kind of symbol to indicate when an alternative program should really be considered.  It's a catch-22 really, if i only list the top 3 alternative apps, people get sad that their favorite app isn't listed. But if i list a large number of alternatives, then it's hard to separate the 2nd best from the wanne bes.

That's why for text editor i tried to list for each one it's implementation of those features i consider most important, in hopes that it would help people to more quickly filter out candidates.

The other thing is that these reviews/awards can sometimes be more about the general subject of task then the app.  90% of the text editor review could really be viewed as "Text Editors: What They Do and What Features To Look For", and written in a way that was agnostic about the actual tool; many of the features that are talked about in the center of the review are in fact features shared by most editors.. and then only at the end recommending UltraEdit.

It may be something to think about whether the weekly reviews wouldn't be better suited if they were done more like guides, with a final recommendation of best app, but not so focused on the winner throughout..  Although it does make it a little harder to discuss feature sets in general.

37456

Living Room / There will be no review on 4/30 - intead we play the new 2-5 hour coding game

« on: April 24, 2005, 10:45 AM »

on 4/30 there will be no software review/award, instead we will our first 2-5 hour coding contest/game, as described in separate thread.

37457

Best Text Editor / Re: UltraEdit 11 - Best text editor?

« on: April 24, 2005, 08:28 AM »

very good point about the forum; i will add that to the review, as that is an important aspect to choosing a program.

37458

Best Text Editor / Re: UltraEdit 11 - Best text editor?

« on: April 24, 2005, 08:19 AM »

great post sentinel; nice to hear some other aspects of ultraedit that i didn't mention.

have you tried slickedit yet?  slickedit and multi-edit seem like they are going after the same audience; both are very expensive though.

ultraedit studio looks extremely interesting.
here's a little easter egg of sorts.  in the ultraedit help file, search for compiler.  you'll find some fascinating pages there that look like that are the begining of ultraedit studio help file and configuration dialogs.  really looks like its going to have very good compiler support.  as a c++ compiler junkie that sounds like heaven to me.

the surprise for me in this weeks review was how full featured this freeware pspad was.. i did not expect that.

37459

Best Text Editor / Re: Pre-review discussion of "BEST TEXT EDITOR"

« on: April 23, 2005, 11:47 PM »

The review is now up.  thank you all for your insights.  I'm moving this into the text editor review section where we can continue our discussion.  As in past reviews I will adjust the review based on feedback if you think i've missed something or gotten something wrong.  If you happen to be in contact with any of the authors of the programs mentioned, please invite them to post.

37460

Unfinished Requests / Re: monthly contest: most useless app that takes 2-5 hours to write

« on: April 23, 2005, 10:58 PM »

I love it!!!!

dnm, if you'd like webspace to host the utility and a little forum section, i'd be happy to make it available for you.

wouldn't it be great if we could get a bunch of authors to play this 2-5 hour coding game?

37461

Best Text Editor / Re: Pre-review discussion of "BEST TEXT EDITOR"

« on: April 23, 2005, 10:13 PM »

great points zridling
actually i already have those other 3 mentioned, and i already covered everything in your points except i forgot to mention moving tabs order.
and i think i will add something about using a dedicated programming editor like slickedit.

37462

Unfinished Requests / Re: monthly contest: most useless app that takes 2-5 hours to write

« on: April 23, 2005, 06:45 PM »

lol,
are you sorry because it qualifies? 

37463

Unfinished Requests / Re: monthly contest: most useless app that takes 2-5 hours to write

« on: April 23, 2005, 06:40 PM »

i suppose it would be helpful if ideas were vetted by a programmer regarding whether they meet the qualifications of the contest..
analysis of this idea:
this could be created in 2-5 hours, so it qualifies as a valid submission.

37464

Best Text Editor / Re: Pre-review discussion of "BEST TEXT EDITOR"

« on: April 23, 2005, 03:51 PM »

a few more for consideration:

http://www.crimsoneditor.com - CrimsonEditor (free)
http://www.vim.org - Vim for Windows
http://www.context.cx - ConTEXT (free)
http://www.emeditor.com - EmEditor
http://www.alentum.com/editpro/index.htm - EditPro
http://www.pspad.com/en - PsPad

opinions wanted..

37465

Best Text Editor / Re: Pre-review discussion of "BEST TEXT EDITOR"

« on: April 23, 2005, 10:06 AM »

good, keep the suggestions coming.

notepad++ is based on scintilla which is also used in scite:
http://scintilla.sou...forge.net/SciTE.html

37466

Best Text Editor / Pre-review discussion of "BEST TEXT EDITOR"

« on: April 23, 2005, 08:49 AM »

ok, ftp servers are going to be done in a future week.

this week's review will be BEST TEXT EDITOR.

Some candidates:
 ulraedit, http://www.ultraedit.com
 notetab, http://www.notetab.com
 textpad, http://www.textpad.com
 editpad, http://www.editpadpro.com
 metapad, http://www.liquidninja.com/metapad

other free and open source text editor favorite suggestions are desired..

37467

Mouser's Zone / Re: launcher tool

« on: April 22, 2005, 04:43 AM »

well good drag and drop support is one of the things i want to do.
drag new app onto empty space on bar, it adds it.
drag doc onto button, it launches with button.

i think true launch bar can do this, and even the quick launch bar that comes with windows can do this i think.

the main feature i rely on is easy ability to design a nested hierarchy of buttons with submenus; thats the main thing lacking in quick launch bar.

37468

General Software Discussion / Re: RK Launcher

« on: April 22, 2005, 04:23 AM »

btw i love how you posted zero3k, short description, pictures, then links and license.  that's a good model for us all to follow.

37469

Official DonationCoder.com Reviews / Re: Reviews content suggestion

« on: April 22, 2005, 02:27 AM »

there can be no doubt that ricnaff's comments and suggests are 100% on the money, and as zridling says, the only issue here is really the time required to get this done right.. we will endeavor to improve this and try to come closer to this ideal.  it will make a big difference if we can eventually build a "team" of reviewers, such that each review has a longer lead time between start date and deadline for publishing.

the other way i want to address this issue is to make the forum section for each review much more of an integral part of what is considered the review.  ie. one should think of the review and its forum discussion section and 2 parts of the same thing.  you read the review for the summary opinion and then you click to visit the forum section where you might hear dissenting views and maybe some users can help fill in some of the details that would be useful to have about other apps.

it takes time to build up an active forum.. we are getting there, and i think over time the forums will grow in value and become a real asset to the reviews; they've already been a great help to me.  as we get more participation from people prior to and after the reviews, i think they will begin to provide the kind of information that ric rightly says would be useful.

37470

Unfinished Requests / Re: monthly contest: most useless app that takes 2-5 hours to write

« on: April 21, 2005, 09:20 PM »

what might be most fun would be simple little single-player games that dont involve much in the way of graphics

37471

General Review Discussion / Re: What categories should we review next?

« on: April 21, 2005, 05:39 PM »

syncing tool might be covered by our beyond compare review..

so many good ideas, i think it's safe to say we are going to get around to all of these categories eventually.. just a matter of what order we do them in..

outlining/note-taking tools are near and dear to my heart, so i might do a review of those soon, same with screen recorder.

37472

Best FTP Server / Re: ASRT: What should we do for 4/23?

« on: April 21, 2005, 04:36 PM »

ok sounds good, we'll do ftp server next week maybe.

now for this week..
maybe explorer replacement would be good, though that ones going to be so contentious im not looking forward to it

37473

DesktopCoral / Re: DesktopCoral 1.00.04 BETA DOWNLOAD?

« on: April 21, 2005, 04:34 PM »

desktop coral needs a new update soon.
i think someone else reported the transparency issue, you can try the latest version which uses a checkbox now to toggle on and off 100% transparency, which was suggested by another user and makes more sense i think.

latest version from member area:
http://donationcoder...esktopCoralSetup.exe

however, i think your other app will probably be pushed off it just as before at startup..
for some reason i discovered that my windows xp that ive been developing this on seems to be one of very few that will cleanly support desktop shortcut icons being on top of the bar when it is 100% transparent; i'm not sure why that would be except that it may be the result of having a dual monitor setup or something special about my ati graphics card driver.  ive tested 2 other winxp and win2k boxes and found that even with transparency set at 100% desktop shortcuts still arent treated 100% perfectly.

the program wasnt initially designed for having shortcuts on it but its clear this is something people would like to do so i'm going to keep working on it and see if i cant get it to work properly.

the same method that is being used to try to fix shortcuts from bumping off the "invisibar" could be used to fix windows from bumping off as well, if i can just get the main features of being able to display and access desktop shortcuts working 100%

the name of the program is a catastrophe as youll see from other posts in this section.  i really meant to call it DesktopCorral, for like a pen that holds horses, but my bad spelling played a trick on me.  someone tried to save me and suggest that coral stood for like the coral in a "barrier" reef..

its a silly enough little program with a small enough audience that it probably doesn't matter what it's called, so i'll not worry about it.. but perhaps when the bugs are worked out and it turns to version 2 maybe it will get a better name..  Invisibar sounds good.

37474

General Software Discussion / Re: anyone using a nice weather tray tool?

« on: April 21, 2005, 04:22 PM »

tenseiken, lol 

37475

Unfinished Requests / early thread about coding snacks idea

« on: April 21, 2005, 03:26 PM »

can we have a monthly contest for who can come up with the most fun idea for a utility/game that takes no more than 2-5 hours to write?
people can submit ideas whenever they get one, and on the last day of each month, a winner idea will be chosen that can be programmed in two hours or less.   totally useless insane ideas are acceptable.  maybe we can get more programmer's to join in and then we could have more than 1 winner each month..  what do you think?  i'll try to bring in a couple more programmers if we get some fun ideas.

ok first contest is for end of this month.. so you guys have 10 days to think of a useless ridiculous app or game that can be written in 2-5 hours. the less time the better..  winner gets to name the program and put their icon/picture name in the about box or something. and winning programs will be uploaded for everyone to try out.  person who suggested the idea can write up a little description and web page for the program.

do we need a name for this game... The Five Hour Fiasco?